Would you read my story on how I travel the world and build mini businesses along the way? Would you read it if I share stories on how it is to venture around the world as a solo female traveller?
Would it be interesting for you to know how and if it is possible to keep relationships while travelling?
Well... Welcome to Tina Wonderland. I am going to cover all of that jazz! :) All of the above if pretty much all I do in life.
First of all, let me talk about why I am getting involved into Steemit, and who's fault it is.
Well, as you can see I started my first post about 3 months ago...This was when I started to get into crypto currency. A group of friends of mine and myself we blocked out 55 hours out of our weekends and just focussed on crypto crypto crypto....
We gathered ALL the information we possibly could about Bitcoins, Ethereum, blablabla.
We all live in Bali, one of the hotspots of digital nomads. So the majority of us lives in kick ass villas with amazing pools and we drink coconuts all day long. More to that later...
We all were pretty much on the same level of knowledge regarding crypto apart from my friend Arthur. Arthur lived in my co-living house (I was running a co-living house for entrepreneurs for about a year in Bali, also more to this later).
This was my Villa Kunterbunt:
This is Arthur, drinking coffee in our pool.
Arthur was more advanced in the field and just loves talking about crypto all day long. So he introduced me to @suppoman.
Suppoman runs a Youtube channel and comes on live EVERY SINGLE DAY to talk about the latest crypto news, which ICOs to invest in, what's going on in the crypto world and blablabla. (I want to use this opportunity to say thank you for your consistency @suppoman, honesty and sexiness you bring to us on a daily basis! YES, it HAS TO BE SAID!).
@suppoman offers courses on Udemy (soon also on BitDegree!!) and I bought pretty much all of them and just started to watch his videos.
This was in January 2018.
The more Suppoman videos I watched... the more attracted I became to this man. It was ridiculous (and still is!)
So, Mister Suppoman became my biggest crush in 2017. (There is still room for 2018 guys! LOL).
Mama Mia I spent the next months EVERY SINGLE DAY to watch multiple videos a day of him... I have calmed down a little bit now and try to live a bit more of a life offline :-p
I have invited him to come to Bali, so let's see how it goes.
Anywayyyyys, so Arthur and Suppoman are the reasons why I got involved into crypto in the first place.
Now, living in Bali you meet all sorts of inspiring people who follow their hearts and live their lives on their own terms.
Through my dearest friend Kunal (whom I also met via living in my entrepreneur house and go on various adventures ever since around the world) I got introduced to @nomadicsoul who is an active writer on Steemit.
Kunal and me on top of erupting volcano Agung, November 2017, Bali. You can see a video about this crazy trip right below:
It was a crazy experience, the Mount Agung area looked completely like a war zone.
Everything was covered in ashes, the local villages were empty, all locals have been evacuated, only stray dogs were running around...
Anyways, Kunal came up to me the other day and encouraged me to share my content on Steemit...
He reminded me that I have A TON of content ready to be published from my experiences around the world.
I have been travelling around the globe for almost 9 years now and have a lot to say... 9 years of content is stored on multiple hard drives.... JESUS...So I may as well get paid for it!
And OF COURSE, being part of the crypto world and keeping the ball rolling is a HUGE thing for me too.
Now, this morning I woke up and I decided to work on my general morning routine... So I chose to write and edit one piece of content every single morning, first thing in the morning.
Having a routine is one of the most difficult things to have in my lifestyle, yet the most important one you need to have in order to have your sh** together. So, Steemit will be implemented right here and now!
BOOM! That's it! That's my Steemit story in a nutshell!
Who's that girl? Nanananananananananana!
Picture to grab your attention, HERE:
You can check out my social media accounts here and say hallo!
☆ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/take_a_trip_with_tina/
☆ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girlskickass_
☆ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/takeatripwithtina/
☆ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/tiiinatravels
☆ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tinadahmen
Hoi, I am Tina...Born and raised in good old boring Germany. Yes, that's right. In Germany we don't have fun, and that's why I started to travel the world. Well kind of...
I grew up in a village of 500 people, in the middle of nowhere called Habscheid.
As you may know, in a village not many things are going on....so ONCE there is something going on, it becomes everyone's business right there and now.
Oh, and also if nothing is going on, people just invent stories just to keep the entertainment going.
You can't do ANYTHING about it.
So, when my parents finally got divorces, and I was legally allowed to move out of a crazy house, I moved to the next town.
All of a sudden lived with 5000 people around me! Yay! Wooooow! :-D
In this town I met this guy...and guess what... I had a MAJOR crush on him... Lebanese dude... The most beautiful man I ever came across in my life I reckon. I swear god put some special love in creating these handsome people...
He didn't speak any German, I didn't speak any Lebanese... and guess what, my English sucked big time... So communication was very hard.
Long story short, I felt like SUCH AN IDIOT, so I booked myself classes at a language school in Australia for about three months.
This is how that looked like:
When I was 12 years old, I distributed newspaper in our small village, saved the coin over the years and spent about 10k on this journey to OZ... THE BEST INVESTMENT I EVER MADE!
WHY?
It opened up SO MANY doors within my 'small village thinking brain', unbelievable. Sorry parents, friends, and sister....But it is just like that.
I was 24 years old... which is pretty late to 'wake up' and get out into the world I have to admin.
It represented such a drastic change within myself, my mindset...and just changed my entire life completely.
Arriving in Australia, I thought I may understand the basics in English...but hey, they speak Australian over there, not English.
I booked myself into three different language schools in three different cities.
One in Sydney, one in Brisbane and one in Cairns.
Part of the programme was to stay with native speaking host families, who provide food, a room, desk, and a 'family experience', so you can get the most out of your stay. This turned out to be a little bit different for me :)
So, making friends with other international students over there, quickly realising that school and host families sucked, we decided to go on road trips...
A quick background on the host families I stayed with:
The women I lived with in Sydney was divorced and overwhelmed with taking care of her 100 children, dogs and entertaining her lover... So she basically was never home, never cleaned, and never provided any food or anything like that...
The student room was occupied by another Brasilian chick and our host mummy put me in the room of her 5 year old daughter...So I lived with lots of dolls, teddy bears, no desk and no food...
She was in for the money. Not with me... Soz b.... I left and stayed with relatives of a friend in Manly Beach which I am forever grateful.
The second 'family' in Cairns was an older couple... both were alcoholics and yelled and screamed at each other all day long. Coming out of my room and asking a question wasn't a thing... The food which had been served was meat only, if I wanted fruits or vege, I had to buy it myself...
Same story here.. They were in for the money. And we language school students paid A LOT OF MONEY to stay at their homes...Ridiculous!
But hey, then I got to Brisbane... and Jackpot! I finally stayed with NICE people. Mia & John I believe their names were...
A super nice couple, very health conscious, friendly and open to the world.
So that was that. What I am trying to say with all this I guess is how my passion for travel started, how I got into the entire work & travel thing, and how it changed my mindset so enormously which lead me to live the life I am living today, and I am forever grateful for this.
I only realised this though of course when I got back home to Germany...Once I was back in my 'comfort zone', in the place I knew. In my safe and known environment.
I had changed SO MUCH in the last 3 months. I have had so many great (and not so great) experiences... which would have never happened in 100 years in the villages I used to live in...
If I wouldn't have left 'home' I wouldn't have evolved as a person and still would be the small grey mouse in the village, sitting behind the counter in Aldi or serving beers at the weekend to fat guys who are unsatisfied with their lives.
Mamma Mia.
My entire life started to evolve around self-development, growing, fucking things up, learning from it, making it better next time and so on and so on.
This is exactly what travelling gave to me, and what it will give to you.
It speeds up the 'growing as a person' process, it teaches you the right lessons at the right time, it puts the right people in front of your face you are meant to love or hate, go on adventures with, build businesses and relationships.
I truly believe that every single person you meet comes into your life for a reason.
So pay close attention and make the best out of every situation. Every. Single. Time.
I hope I can be the last light blue part of this picture for you.
After my first return home... it took only a few weeks time until I realised how unhappy I was being back in my 'old life'.
I quickly quit my job, went back to school to finish the last level of high school, which would allow me to go to university.
I then applied to study tourism in Germany, and got accepted. Yay!
There are 6 months to kill until university starts. I may as well just go back to Australia and learn a few more words of English before they kick my ass at university...
So I did. I still had the contacts of the activity coordinator from the language school I was attending back then and asked him if he had a job for me. And he did! WHAT?? I will be a travel agent assistant...NICE!
All right... Sydney, I am coming back for you!
When I arrived in Sydney, this douche of a bag of activity coordinator didn't work for the language school anymore, he started his own travel desk in this hostel at Collaroy Beach...
So basically he gave me the job, and his new bosses didn't even know about me coming...
So here I am, with my suitcase, ready to start working, without a job. The drama was big, and the guy was a complete idiot...He didn't tell anyone about his idea of using me as his assistant and blablabla.
Long story short, the owners of the hostel, Mike & James were the nicest people on the planet you could ever wish for to meet.
They didn't send me away or anything. Instead they gave me the job as the activity coordinator at their place... they gave me a free room in their apartment and later on... they fired the dude who called me over... and offered me his job as the travel agent of the place.
The guys even offered me sponsorship...and I kindly declined it... WHY? By this time I already extended my stay in Australia from 6 months to 2 years...
Before I left Germany the second time I managed to get myself a scholarhip which would sponsor majority of my university costs etc. So if I wouldn't go back after those two years, I would loose the scholarship..
So I decided to leave the Sydney Beach House and started travelling around Australia for another six months...
I worked in all sorts of jobs... I was a jillaroo at a cattle station in the desert of Alice Springs, was a horse meat cutter and crocodile farmer (literally), a cleaner for cocaine addicts, a waitress, a gardener for an old divorced pedophile and so and and so on...
My colleagues cutting horse meat...
Me skinning baby crocodile :-o (I don't know how I was ever capable of doing something like this!)
I will type up another post about my work & travel experience around Australia some other time. It was a HUGE experience. Especially when I got charged by a bull in the desert. I am not even joking.
This is us playing around on the farm.
And this is how my little present looks like today...
I will type up a separate post about this also... slowly I start to think I should write a book...
Let me quickly jump back to the scholarship...I want to explain how easy it can be to get paid to go to university.
So, how did I get the scholarship? I did an apprenticeship at the catholic church (yes, really) in office administration (the most boring time of my life!)...This was a three year 'degree' thing... 80% of the time I was absent because I hated it SO MUCH.
I was 17 or 18 when all of this happened. It was probably the toughest time of my life.
- My boyfriend died. My first love. Gone. Wiped out of this planet in just a few seconds. FOREVER.
- My parents got divorced in a really not nice way. It was a long & horrible procedure over many years.
- And finally I became a drug addicct... (though looking back today I don't believe in addiction anymore and I classify it as an attention thing)
Soooo... I did have a few excuses not to be present at school... 2 months before the final exam my teacher comes up to me (who is one of my best friends today!) and tells me that if I don't pass the test, I need to extend this apprentice ship for another 6 months.
My heart started racing and I couldn't believe his words. This is my imagination of burning in HELL.
This apprenticeship was KILLING me. I was sitting in an office with 50 years old frustrated women, who were doing the book keeping for the Catholic Church. Every three weeks a priest would pop by and hand in some receipts which needed to be paid. This was the only human contact I had with the outside world.
I wish I could show you pictures but for some magical reason I don't have any of them from this exciting time.
I was bored to death. I was never present, always called in sick and went to hang out with my boyfriend instead...
Having these thoughts, I would need to extend this life of horror for another 6 month lit this fire within me...
I took off all the holiday I had left, 4 weeks to be specific. I locked myself into my 54 sqm apartment, for the entire 4 weeks and didn't even think about leaving the house. I didn't speak to anyone and studied the entire last three years of economic, booking keeping, accounting blablabla within one month.
I managed to get the best grades of the class, passed the test and celebrated big time.
There you go. I am the living proof that you can get ANYTHING you want in life, you must only WANT it. Even if you work for the catholic church.
So, having a grade in the final exam of a minimum of 1.6 (1 is the best score you can get) was the requirement for the scholarship. Then you just apply, make a test, after the test you go to the interview and convince them and that's it.
I swear to god, it is SUPER easy. Most people don't think they are 'good enough' to even apply for grants like this... And that is the reason why there are so many available! Just apply and see where it goes!
Now, I also want to tell you about my experience with my boyfriend. I have never really publically shared this on social media and what not because I never thought it's the right place to do so.
But I decided now I must do it. You will see and understand why. I am sharing this story with you, not to moan or complain about it, grief about it, or to get your attention.
I am sharing this with you because I want you to learn from my unfixable mistakes, so you must not make the same...
I was 16 when I met Richie. He was the PURE awesomeness himself. We met at the yearly sports event in Habscheid (the village where I lived with 500 people). He was from Bleialf, the village next door, 600 inhabitants.
It was a Sunday afternoon when I first saw him. The DJ played Techno in the tent and he just went for it. He was the best dancer on the dance floor and enjoyed so much.
His smile while he was moving his body, and just the aura and the happiness he was radiating, I had never seen something like this in my life before.
This was LOVE at first sight. Very much indeed.
We looked at each other, started talking, started hanging out and so on and so forth... We very quickly became a couple. I was 16, he was 22 years old.
I was the most annoying girlfriend you could ever have on planet earth.
He was a very handsome man, he was very popular amongst all the girls around all the villages. Richie was a bricklayer, so he had a very nice body, he loved to go to the gym, he loved techno and dancing.
We were the perfect fit. I loved techno and dancing and just started to 'get into the scene'...
I wasn't allowed to go out at night on parties just yet. My parents were like hardcore tyrants. First generation after the war, if you know what I mean. I pretty much wasn't allowed to do anything.
My sister, who is 2.5 years older then I am always was allowed to do everything... and I wasn't. Ha! So the bitch fight also was an ongoing thing at home.
My sister always hated me. I was the one who escaped at night from my room through the back window and went out on parties with my guy friends.
We rode scooters along the villages, met to drink beers at the bus station when we were 12 years old and so on and so forth.
She wasn't a very outgoing person during those times, very shy and insecure.
So I had friends, and she didn't. Therefore she hated me and always played the snitch. Jeeeeesus what an annoying person she was (and still is to this date to be honest!). Sorry sis, you are annoying, but I still love you.
Back to the point... I wasn't officially allowed to go out as much as Richie did of course, he was 6 years older then I was. So, especially guys in that age love all female attention and blablabla you know the jazz... he was a cheater big time.
How did I find out? Village propaganda hahaha. Of course. Nothing stays secret.
The worst thing was he cheated on me with my 'best friend' Julia.
Yes.
Not only once. But multiple times. She was this Russian, good but slutty looking chick who had bulimia. Therefore she was skinny AF and had some proper physic problems going on in her head... The guys didn't mind at all.
When I found out about this the first time I was furious. But I forgave both of them very quickly. DUMB TINA!
And of course it happened again, and again, and again... Julia was the slut of the village. Everyone slept with her. Everyone didn't mind sleeping with her. Urg.
If I think about it today it still makes me feel disgusted and I feel like vomiting.
I now was part of this group of girl in the neighboring village.. My other girl friends also had boyfriends sometimes. And as soon as they had, Julia was present as well...
She slept with EVERY SINGLE BOYFRIEND of our group of girlfriends. The bitch fights never ended and the guys enjoyed the show.
It was a disaster. Every weekend a new story...
Looking back at those situations makes me really wonder, what I was possibly thinking to hang out with people like this...
This may the reason why I am allergic to slutty looking women these days... Maybe, maybe not.
It just represents cheap character to me, insecurities, lies and drama. So bitches, message from me to you right now:
Get your shit together and leave people in peace alone.
Right. Now, Richie was a druggie. I can not put in words how much I hated him doing the drugs. This is why I said earlier 'I was the most annoying girl friend' on the planet.
He smoked weed every single day. He drove his noisy car around the villages, stoned. His car made so much noise that I could hear him coming when he left his village 8 km far away. My parents really didn't like him.
Richie and myself were on a constant fight when he was at his friend's place 'playing xbox'... as that only meant 'I will be stoned for the next 12 hours and not able to talk to you'. It was crazy and horrible.
Sometimes he managed to move his ass off the couch and come to my house, sometimes he didn't.
It was disappointing and boring.
In all this mess, at some point he broke up with me. I was mentally so exhausted that I said something very very bad, and I regret it so much to this date.
I was at the local bar with my friends, and a few mutual friends of us. Richie walks in, moves over to the other side of the bar.
At this point I was so hurt, exhausted and over it, that I told to one of our mates: "I wouldn't even care if he would die tomorrow.'
WOW.
These were the last words I spoke about Richard and I can NEVER EVER take them back.
In the next morning I wake up around 3.30 am. My friend Danny is calling.
"Tina. Richie had an accident last night and died. I am sorry."
I was half asleep, didn't want to believe this and didn't realise what was going on. I pretended I didn't understand anything and kept on sleeping.
A few hours later I wake up a few times because my mother keeps running in and out of my room. She keeps telling me the phone is rinning for me and it's Barbara, Richie's sister. She needs me to call her back asap.
So I did. Barbara yells into the phone: "He is dead!"
In that moment I realised I was not dreaming, the phone call last night was real. My bad words became reality.
My world broke apart.
It was horrible.
I never experienced so much pain, rage, hate, love, unclarity, regret and confusion at the same time.
It was the most uncomfortable emotion I have ever had in my entire life.
I don't remember what I did after I put down the phone. I don't remember where I went or whom I spoke to.
What happened?
Richie was out at a night club in Waxweiler.
Every Friday they used to organise 1,- EURO parties. This means every drink you order costs only 1 Euro.
This was a huge thing where I grew up. We have a HUGE drinking culture, this is ALL we did during our weekends. There is no such thing as perspective in the villages, unless you move away and find your own way.
Richie was there with a group of guy friends. They were there with a taxi, 8 guys all together. He was having a massive argument with one random guy.
Dimitrij, one of our mutual friends told me they dragged him away from this guy as he was very aggressive and was about to kill this man. He was drunk and under influence of several different drugs.
When the guys arrived at home, they dropped Richie off at his house.
Richie was still so angry about everything what had happened and decided to get into his car to drive back to the club and smash this guy's face.
He left home, and never returned.
He crashed into the trees 5 minutes away from his house and died.
Just like that. From one minute to the other, his life was over.
His life was over because of party, alcohol and drugs. He was 22 years old.
This happened on December 27th 2003. The worst possible day of my entire life.
It's almost 15 years ago now.
I have worked through it. For a long time I blamed myself for it. For a long time some people told me that he had changed so much to the negative after we broke up and went all crazy.
Some people from the village, including myself seeked the fault within me.
For a very long time I thought I killed him. I thought it was my fault. Maybe I didn't care enough, maybe I could have been stronger and be with him just a little bit longer, maybe blablabalblabla.
Today I know it wasn't my fault and I have worked through it. I have faced my shit and I am ok with it, yet it still hurts like someone punches me straight into my face. I don't think this pain will ever faint.
You just learn to live with the pain.
One thing I will never be able to take back are my very bad words...
I don't hate Julia (my back then best friend). I forgave her millions of times. Today she is just a nothing to me.
She is probably one of the most ruthless person I came across on this planet, amongst my ex-boss. (More to this later also).
The moral of the story here, and a few lessons I take out of this disaster:
(These may be very obvious and you hear about them all the time... but you don't really pay attention until they hit you straight in the face)
- Your life can be over from one second to the other, make the most out of it.
- Experience as much as you can and really try to live your life to the fullest.
- Please don't care so much what other people think of you and how you live your life, dogma is the devil.
- If you love someone, say it. Life is too short to be lived alone. (It took me a good 31 years to understand that, and I finally arrived at this point of understanding.)
- Get rid of your ego, it doesn't help anyone and it just stands in your own way.
- Love as much as you can, some people don't even know how to spell the word love. Just help them a little ;-)
- Watch out who you hang out with, you become like the 5 people you spend the most time with.
- I enjoy a good party, and I know very well where is the end for me.
- My communication skills suck big time, this is still an ongoing challenge.
- Time is all there is, time is all we have.
This experience took me a good 10 years to work through it all, to really realise what happened, to analyse and understand and finally to be ok with it. It took me forever to understand the situations I was in, why the things happened the way they did.
He was my first love. I was crazy in love, and I was young and unexperienced.
The first 3-5 years I lived in complete denial I reckon.
I think this experience is one of the biggest reasons why I started travelling. At the beginning, sure, to digest what happened and work through it, but later on it was more about the 'enjoy your life, it can be over any second' reason.
It may all sounds strange now and everything, but all those experiences have let me to live the life I am living right now.
Today I am happy and content.
I am greatfull.
I life in Bali, I am being surrounded by likeminded entrepreneurs who are all here to change the world. This is the most important factor to me. These amazing people.
I have evolved, grown and learned so much during the last 9 years of travelling that I can happily say I have arrived 'home'.
And this doesn't mean Bali as a location. This means home within myself.
The place within myself which makes me feel happy. I am aligned with my higher self, I am me.
The place where I live doesn't matter anymore.
In every place you will find beauty, in every place you will find things which annoy you. You just gotta take it as it is and make the best out of it.
I understand I have the power to change anything I want within seconds, and this is the biggest gift the universe could possibly ever give to me.
If you want to learn more about changing your state within minutes and all that stuff, look up Tony Robbins. He is the King. He has taught me a lot during those difficult times.
Now, let me tell you about how it is to travel with a boyfriend. I had been travelling solo ever since... Until I met Riccardo! :-)
Two years ago I was in a relationship with this handsome Italian guy. We both went to the same university in London and were in the same entrepreneur club.
So our ways crossed at some point and we got together. It was a very nice time.
Riccardo was more the city type of guy whereas I couldn't wait to gtf out of London. So I convinced him to go and travel South America with me... well... at least Colombia and Portugal...
Ok so I need to put on this cheesy picture now
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My friend Johannes runs digital nomad cruises around South America and Europe and I wanted to be on one.
Riccardo had to come! :-D At this point I knew for myself long-distance relationships never worked out for me, so he had to choose. Yes, I can be pretty demanding once I know what serves me and what doesn't. Sorry not sorry.
The cruise started off in Cartagena and went on for 2 weeks across the North Atlantic Ocean to Lisbon, Portugal.
I was always super interested in ayahuasca ceremonies and in the entire philosophy behind it.
I will just briefly touch on the topic here, again I will create another post about my ayahuasca experience, and you will get the full version, don't worry.
Consuming Ayahuasca represents healing to me. It represents detoxing, letting go of the past, releasing pain and becoming more awaken and enlightened.
I was ready to heal and I am on a journey. After all I am in a relationship, and relationships mean healing.
I didn't speak any Spanish, neither did Riccardo. The shaman she was a very old lady from Peru which we only found via word of mouth recommended through locals in a small down called Leticia.
The old lady's house was covered in a massive ayahuasca plant.
She didn't speak any English.
Riccardo is Italian... sooo Italian and Spanish is quiet similar... so he tried to translate whatever was going on....
I was gone, out in space, tripping, whereas he was sober, trying not to freak out in the situation. It was his first time proper travelling and his girlfriend is spaced out in the Amazonas somewhere in the jungle. So, credits to Riccardo for not loosing his mind.
It was a very interesting experience which I like to share more of in a later post.
Why am I mentioning the experience with Riccardo? Well, it was another journey, another awakening... It was the first time I really traveled with a boy friend, and it was amazing. It was amazing to share the experience.
Here I learned, that you don't have to do 'everything by yourself'. I now embrace to share more experiences with another human being, preferably someone I am in love with. Amazing. Really truly amazing. You get to know each other really well and, sometimes argue and make up for it again :-)
Unfortunately, after our trip, arriving back to London, I had to break up with him. There were two really relevant things which bothered me SO MUCH, which I did not want to compromise on, not in a million years.
One, he was a stoner. Yes, he was running his business with multiple employees, he was a gentleman, we had great sex and everything else was perfect. Yet he thought it's very important to smoke weed every night in order to chill out and calm down from the day. HOW OFF TURNING.
Mama mia, why???
To me, this represents weakness and downgrades my presence and time I am spending with this person. Ain't got time for that peeps.
Second, he used to sleep with one of his employees until I came into the picture. He said she liked him a little more than he liked her and therefor wasn't too amazed about my presence. Well, that's not my problem... is it?
Ha! You would think so. She was a photographer at his company, and she was out at night, doing her job in nightclubs in the town where we lived.
Trains in Kingston stop running after 12 am, so there was always 'this room' right next to his room, which allowed his staff to stay in his house after shift. I tolerated it for a few weeks and then the story was over for me.
This may look insecure from my side, and maybe it is. Maybe it's an effect when I got burned in the past.
Yet at the same time I wished he would have shown more respect towards his girlfriend and sort out another solution to this problem.
If you can't stop your old businesses... when you start something new and bring respect into a new relationship, then you ain't my man. Soz boiii. Ain't got time for this.
You can be the sexiest, smartest, and richest man alive, if you don't bring respect to the table, you ain't my man.
Surely you can see where these boundaries of mine come from. I am very aware.
I am too old for this kind of stuff. If I get into a relationship then I put 100% effort in and I expect exactly the same in return. There is no half way in. That's boring.
As you can imagine it was a horrible break up. Even though it was my decision, I suffered like a dog. I didn't eat for weeks and spend most of my time at the gym.
I even had a six pack within a few weeks. Ha! Break ups are well the best diet EVER! I promise!
With most of my exes I am friends. And I wanted to be his friend too, after some time had passed. He is Italian, and he will never ever in this lifetime forgive me to have left him. I really do hope he can forgive me at some point.
I don't believe in 'friendships' between man and women. There is always one side who wants more then the other side does.
Deep inside we all know this. However, it would just be nice to be cool with each other and forgive each other for whatever happened.
It was summer time in London, I finished the summer season with my school trips. I used to run educational student trips around the UK.
This company of mine was called World Study Travels.
I took out language students who come to the UK to learn English over the summer on educational weekend trips to places such as Stonehenge, Bath, Oxford, Cambridge and so on.
It was fun and a big hussle. I was bored at University. After we climbed Kilimanjaro, I had to have a new challenge which happened to be this company.
When I came back from my Erasmus exchange semester from Istanbul and Perth, I had to finish off one more year in London. Soooo boring. I wasn't at school 80% of the time, and the other 20% I had no idea what was going on.
I studied Journalism and Human Rights, but I was hanging out at the Business campus and sneaked into business lectures....
So, I knew the tourism game in London due to previous jobs and decided to run my own tours. I pulled up the company within one month, filled a few buses on a few trips... Knew the right people who would put my adverts for free in the TVs around campuses.
I managed to find a way through our university mailing system to get all the contacts from all the students at university. 20.000 emails went out 2x / week:
I walked through the corridors like a celebrity. I was famous over night. Everyone knew who I was, everyone said 'hallo Tina!'
It was glorious.
December 2016, I decided to move back to Bali. It's time. Enough London, enough cold, enough of everything. During winter 2016 I was unknowingly involved in some mafia business in London...So once I managed to get out of there, I was off. (More about this very interesting experience also in another post).
Summer 2017: I live in Bali, but I still run a trip around Brighton with my staff over in the UK. It worked out, operating it form here. But it was also the last one your I ran in the UK.
World Study Travels officially died. RIP #summer2017
Bali - Home sweet home.
Here I am, moving back to the island of gods. Arriving via Chiang Mai, I came to stay.
It's been a little over a year now and I have come here to be surrounded by the entrepreneurial community. I have come here to work more on my travel content, to get more of a direction in my online travel business, work on Girls Kick Ass, and to have a better lifestyle for less money.
Obviously, as many other entrepreneurs, I also have a shiny object syndrome. I have a big talent to start one business after the other. My businesses all make 'some money'.
Quickly I have a new idea and start a new business within a day. I only call a business a business once the first $1 has been paid.
So, I came to Bali and wanted to be surrounded by entrepreneurs. I leased a 4 bedroom villa for a year and rented out the other rooms to likeminded people.
It was a blast for the first 9 months. I really enjoyed talking about business all day long, talking about the latest apps, productivity hacks and so on and so forth.
It was one of the most interesting times of my life. I met so many people, who are all working on amazing projects, who are all looking to escape the matrix and who are all trying to make this world a better place. I made friends for life.
I hosted about 25 people in my villa during this year. And only hated one person! What a great result!
After 9-10 month of running the show, being present AT ALL TIMES, having conversations in THE MINUTE YOU WAKE UP and being woken up after midnight for ridiculous reasons, I had enough and decided to close it down.
I needed more peace and more focus, more time to concentrate on my actual work.
I used to be the 'busy Tina'.
I lived in Bali for a good year and went to the beach about 5 times during the entire year.
WHAT THE F*** IS WRONG WITH ME?
I live on a tropical island and don't have fun? Outsch. Well occasionally I did... but clearly not enough.
Just now, a few weeks ago the I hit rock bottom again, being overloaded with tasks and calls, messages and things.... I was so close to have another burnout. After my first burnout I sworn to god I will do everything possible not to have this ever ever ever again.
I just closed down my 4-bedroom entrepreneur house and out of coincidence, I become a mother of a 15 bedroom co-living villa right after. NOT WANTED AT ALL... So I went with it for 2 months now, until shit hit the fan.
I was again overworked, and overwhelmed with my things, and therefore wasn't the nicest person to some people I actually liked...
The minute this happened I realised it, apologised and tried to fix the situation... however, it's been rocky ever since.
This was just another wakeup call. So, thank you universe.
I decided NOT to be the busy person anymore, I decided NOT to be the person on the phone AT ALL TIMES (yet I am struggling with it tbh, but actively working on it as well).
It's not worth it to disrespect other peoples effort to try and be in touch with you, because you can't handle all your s***.
It's not worth it to disrespect another persons time, when they come and see you and you spend most of your time ON THE PHONE. This is HORRIBLE POPLE! PLEASE DON'T DO IT!
SHOOT ME:
TAKE ME NOW:
And this is the time RIGHT NOW to take care of myself.
I started to go dancing more often and I started to learn how to play the saxophone. Just things which make me happy and fill up my cup.
My cup is full. And if your cup is full, you are able to give more, you are able to build more loving relationships and share valuable time with friends & your partner and build a better business.
My work makes me super happy, but hey, you gotta go out and hang with people some times.
I love planning out holidays for other people, sending them on my trips, connecting them with my tour guides and everything and giving them the best time they can possibly have.
I have created this SUPER DOUPER kick ass package for people to go over and explore the Gili Islands & Lombok. No other company does it and my clients are amazed. If you are keen to go, please message me! :)
I am currently writing a guidebook about Bali on where to eat, sleep, relax, which activities to undertake and so on and so forth. It's fun, I really enjoy it.
You can sign up here to be notified once it will be published. There will be awesome benefits for the readers, such as massive discounts at the hippest restaurants, cafes, hotels and spas around Bali.
So, my focus for 2018 will be all on Bali. Creating content and tours around the island.
For October 2018 I have planned the first Girls Kick Ass self-defense retreat in Bali. It's aimed to female travellers. Mothers & daughters are very welcome.
You can find out more information on this on my website www.girlskickass.org.
The mission behind Girls Kick Ass is easy. I was nearly kidnapped by human traffickers at the Cambodian / Thai border and was sexually harassed on a daily basis while I was living in Turkey.
I keep those stories for other posts as I feel like this is getting a bit long...
I get up in the morning and I am excited to start 'work'. EVERY SINGLE DAY.
I wish for you, you can do the same. I hope for you, you will find your way if you haven't found it yet.
Shoot me a message, drop a comment below, let me know your thoughts, your way of life.
For the future will be reporting about the travel world, what's going on on the island of Bali, and other places around the world. I will be reporting about other destinations I have been to, and I will share more of Girls Kick Ass as well.
If you come to Bali, say hello. I am around.
Much Love,
Tina
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Women on Steemit: Check this out: http://bit.ly/2r9eIZ0
